Walking speed to determine walking performance of people with mobility limitations from a developing country

ABSTRACT

Background

The criteria to determine walking performance of people with mobility limitations from developed countries have been already reported. However, these criteria may not be suitable to be applied for people with mobility limitations from developing countries due to the differences in sociodemographic characteristics and environmental conditions.

Objective

To explore cutoff points of walking speed to determine walking performance of individuals with mobility limitations from a developing country.

Methods

Individuals with mobility limitations from a developing country (n = 136) were cross-sectionally interviewed and assessed for their demographics and walking performance. Then they were assessed for their walking speed using the 10-meter walk test.

Results

Walking speeds of ≥0.30 m/s, ≥ 0.40 m/s, and ≥0.65 m/s could optimally indicate the ability of outside-home walking, limited-community walking, and full-community walking, respectively (sensitivity = 78%–84%, specificity = 81%–93%, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC] > 0.90). Moreover, a walking speed of ≥0.35 m/s could suggest the ability of functional walking (sensitivity = 78%; specificity = 83%; and AUC = 0.89).

Conclusions

With the need of standard practical measure for early screening and monitoring of functional alteration over time, the present walking speed cutoff points may be clinically applied to suggest walking performance in daily living specifically for individuals with mobility limitations from a developing country.

KEYWORDS:

• 10-meter walk test
• Clinical measure
• Gait
• Rehabilitation
• Neurology

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Fundamental Fund 2022, the Faculty of Associated Medical Sciences (1.1-01-2565), Grant for Post-Doctoral Training Program from Khon Kaen University (PD2566-04), and Research and Graduate Studies, Khon Kaen University (RP66-4-002), Thailand.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors certify that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Faculty of Associated Medical Sciences, Khon Kaen University, Thailand (Postdoctoral training programme); [1.1-01-2565]; Postdoctoral training programme [1.1-01-2565]; Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) (Fundamental Fund 2022) .